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Talk:What not to Suggest/@comment-33763020-20181026105908/@comment-33763020-20181103171751
I am well aware that it is not simple and again, I would not like to underestimate the effort involved in coding builds into the existing environment. Clearly I am really happy that we have some structures at least. There are two reasons however why I think that there is no reason for postponing this phase of development and clearly the benefits are huge by having these magnificents builds that give us really the feeling of being there: 1. If we look at current builds, starting with the smallest (simple hobbit hole or Ranger camp), through major structures (Gondorian or Far Harad cities) all the way to the biggest ones (Rammas Echor, Ring of Isengard), none of these are perfectly implemented at the moment either.. With the big cities, I often see the city wall as a prolonguement of a "chunk" above the ground, without smooth layover of its surrounding. Often with the surrounding hills cut through half, so the city can fit in. The Rammas Echor just stops mid-air before it reaches the mountains. Smaller builds like hobbit houses often are half-built into the ground, barns opening into caves and with inaccessible entrances, etc. I do not mean to criticize the effort, just stating facts: the current solution is far from perfect and clearly compromises have been made to enable builds, at the cost of perfection (and full immersion). I plea that if the current solution is not optimal and clearly shows landscaping issues, nobody playing the game will expect perfect solutions from the environment of the major builds either, i.e. the bordering chunks. 2. For the majority of the major structures, there are workarounds. The example of the Gen. Grievous1138 builds is one: he built the structures in a given environment chunk, which then gets copied as a whole, along with more chunks, in fact a major part of Mordor. While I led my troops from Ithilien all the way to the Black Gate, that we took by force, I did not see a single chunk discrepancy, as the bleak vasteness before the mountains allowed for smooth transition. By copy/pasting MANY chunks with these builds, the "cuts" between chunks is limited to the edges of the new chunks vs the existing ones, as the structure itself is perfectly fitting its chunk environment, since the builder built it in a given chunk setting! The rules remain the same (i.e. spawn rules) as I noticed when I copied the new chunks, so my enemies keep spawning nicely. Protection banners work perfectly as well, so it seems to me the only change is that the chunk blocks have been replaced. There are not that many builds that require putting into the game. Gen. Grievous1138 basically did all the work for Mordor already, since the chunks environments have been expanded by him to a large area, so cut-overs are minimal. Minas Tirith is a given as well, since the Rammas Echor has already been built on a flat area and the city needs to "fill" the walls. The mountain side could be handled by expanding the new chunk beyond the mountain until flat areas, so that chunk transition is smooth and mountains do not get cut in half. In general I would recommend this for all major builds: expand the chunks till flat areas, so that transition is smooth. As far as I understand there are tools for smoothing out terrain, so that nothing crazy happens. Overall, I think the question is whether the players would be happy to play with the mod that is filled with all these amazing structures, or whether they rather wait for years (if at all) whether these will be implemented. Clearly, many servers have chosen not to wait, since they have built these structures themselves and implemented these in their map environment. Why reinvent the wheel however and have all of us play architect, especially when we're not good at it? I'm sure many builders would gladly make their builds available, so Mevans only needs to do quality assurance, instead of building. I do not see a challenge of "coding" these structures in their direct environment therefore, but the challenge is to smooth out the terrain on a broader area outside these chunks. That is what I tried to point out with my suggestion. Also, I wonder whether the mod works like a vanilla game in a sense of "random seed generation" or not: since the map is a given and the biomes are determined accordingly, does this imply that the only thing that can differ between my map and someone else's is how terrain rolls WITHIN a given area? I may even pose the question: should there be ANY random seed generation at all for the mod (if there is one at the moment)? If Middle-earth is a given, is it not practical to use one single seed for the mod and create everything in that seed? This way, if anybody wants to build anything, you can be sure that if this hill stands here on my map, you will have the same hill on your map, thus any builds can be easily transferred between maps! This allows for simultaneous work on building ME's structures without bumping into the classic vanilla issues of different seeds that lead to different biomes and landscapes. Maybe I am knocking on open doors and there is only on single seed map, in which case I do not understand the "coding" issue at all and the problem with copying chunks.. Help is much appreciated from a technical sense, I could not find any info on the forum on this. I guess I could generate a new world and see whether it's identical to my previous one, but this still does not answer whether currently coding is done in a single seed map or not.